Ofelia Flores,<\/a> who refers to herself as a survivor of human trafficking, said she wants to share her story to support other victims and motivate them to seek help.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I grew up, there were no resources. I got a probation officer. I didn\u2019t get a social worker. I didn\u2019t get a therapist. I got a probation officer,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n
Flores said collaborative efforts in Kern County, including CityServe and the Kern Coalition Against Human Trafficking, have helped people identify victims. She said the increased attention has also helped survivors feel more comfortable speaking publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are survivors like us that can actually come out and tell our story because it\u2019s not shamed away. It\u2019s talked about now,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n
As part of Project Rescue, 10 GET buses will be wrapped with banners containing the National Human Trafficking Hotline and emergency help numbers in both English and Spanish. Flores called it a good start.<\/p>\n
Dustin Contreras of the Kern Coalition Against Human Trafficking said more work remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, there are gaps in how human trafficking is addressed. And Kern County, historically, didn\u2019t pay attention to those gaps. That\u2019s why the coalition was created. To expose those gaps and to address them in a partnership type of way,\u201d Contreras said.<\/p>\n
Contreras also emphasized the need to recognize and prevent labor trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve heard that we may start drilling again, here in Kern County. When the oil industry comes, human trafficking cases rise. And, that\u2019s the black and white of it. It happens no matter what,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Separately, Red Bucket Day<\/a> takes place April 10 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Compassion Corner, as well as Hodel\u2019s and Sully\u2019s Chevron on Stockdale and Coffee. Breakfast burritos will be for sale at Compassion Corner, with presale available by calling (661) 501-3796.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bakersfield officials and anti-trafficking advocates are launching a new public awareness effort after 17 arrests were reported last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-214097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}